BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: A TOP 4 SEATTLE REGIONAL REPORT

Hello Hat Lovers!

My name is Wesley, or DreadPirateRoberts as I shall henceforth be known, and this is my first team report, but I hope to bring more content to you guys in the future.

I have been meaning to write this report for a while now, so here it is. This is the team I used to place fourth at the Seattle regional back in May. I have been playing VGC now since sometime in January, I got bored of playing singles on Battlespot all the time and decided to check the Pokemon website for an official competition. This is how I came to play my first premier challenge in Victoria and meet the other authors of this site. After enjoying a few PC’s I decided to go along with team BC down to Washington in May for my first Regional. So without further ado, below is the team I used to make top 4 after going 7-1 in Swiss.

Metagross was definitely my favourite member of the team and the mega I have used the most this year. Steel typing has been so crucial and as you can see I actually have two steel Pokémon on my team, however because of their typing and move coverage the only real overlap is a ground weakness.

This is a pretty standard 252/252 spread. The thing that I’m sure stands out for most people here is Bullet Punch; why run bullet punch when I have max speed, and iron head? Substitute Metagross became really popular for a while for a few reasons, a key one being that is stops sucker punch in its tracks. For me though, bullet punch stops sucker punch, while also suiting my play style a lot better, I love priority moves. Bullet punch also became crucial for me for facing Mega Kang, because after an iron head or a mach punch, two bullet punches usually finishes it off. By the time they realize their sucker punch is useless they have nothing left to stop another bullet punch, whereas with substitute after they fail one sucker punch they always go for another one which can break through sub on the first hit and cause damage, potentially knocking out Metagross before it can hit back. Moreover, I would often redirect status and sucker punch away with Togekiss which made substitute feel less needed as well. The other big mystery on my Metagross is the lack of Zen Headbutt, which happens to be one of Metagross’ most common moves, but in practice it was an attack I never really missed. Most opponents would assume I had it and switch accordingly anyway.

This is the same Togekiss that Mark and Max brought to the Oregon regional and the defence EV’s survive important iron heads from things like life orb Bisharp and Metagross. I loved having rocky helmet to deal with physical attackers, even though a lack of healing was occasionally felt. I would often lead Togekiss with either Metagross or Breloom. Either combo deals with Kang effectively as well.

There’s not much to say here, this is a pretty standard Breloom set, but it brings a lot to the team. Breloom is a really fun Pokémon to use and he would make or break a lot of games with not only his sleep, but his dual grass and fighting coverage. It may seem odd to mention, but my favourite thing about Breloom is facing opposing Greninja leads. People always seem to forget that mach punch hits before protean takes effect and therefore Breloom always gets the surprise knock out due to Greninja’s Dark Subtyping, like I said; I love priority moves.

I can’t fully remember what the EV spread was for, but I do know he was meant to out speed and kill Landorus-T (even if they are EV’d to survive the more common Calm with 60 EV SpA Rotom’s). I remember I started with modest because I didn’t want to breed a calm one at the time, but I still wanted it to be very specially defensive due to Togekiss being particularly defensive. The EV’s also survive a modest solar beam from Charizard-Y in the sun about 70% of the time. I knew I would be avoiding that hit most the time and therefore didn’t feel the need to add more special defence, but at the same time I wanted a decent chance to survive if I had to take a solar beam. As well, there isn’t a whole lot that hits rotom-w harder than that so it seemed like a good benchmark. In the end, I really enjoyed getting a few extra knock outs due to the increased Special Attack. Furthermore, I have been using thunder wave over will-o-wisp since X and Y came out and I really enjoy having a form of speed control on the team, especially if it means I only have to worry about hydro pump misses and not will-o-misses as well.

When I started building this team Shuca wasn’t very popular which meant that I would almost always win the Heatran mirror without needing max speed (including when in trick room). Therefore, I only gave Heatran enough speed to deal with Bisharp and put the rest into HP. I also relied on Heatran a lot for damage output so I couldn’t bring myself to go Timid. I have tried a lot of different moves in the overheat slot including flash cannon, ancient power, and dark pulse. Dark pulse was surprisingly useful in certain situations, like the Cresselia stand offs, but in the end I chose Overheat to hit Aegislash for the OHKO.

Mamoswine was the last edition to the team, and he was the Pokémon I left behind the most. However, I needed a better way to deal with Thundurus and Zapdos, two Pokémon who were really giving me trouble. Mamoswine ended up being perfect for this and he was very useful in the few games I brought him to. I choose adamant over jolly because Landorus wasn’t really a problem and jolly misses out on a lot of key knock outs.

I think it has been a bit too long to give a real break down of all my matches, even if I dig up my notes. I had a lot of great opponents throughout the two day event and I had a really fun time in Seattle. It’s unfortunate I started so late in the season, which is why I wasn’t at nationals this past weekend, but I hope to take a real run at things next year and see how much CP I can collect!

I can’t wait to watch the stream of our BC boys at Worlds this August though!

Hi I’m a friend of Rapha’s. This team is very similar to a team i used to get 1st in the Kansas Regionals in Seniors. I used Toge Meta Breloom Rotom-H Landorus Jellicent. I love you team and that you were able to get success with it!

Hi I’m a friend of Rapha’s. I used a similar team to get 1st in the seniors division at Kansas Regionals. It was Landorus Rotom-H Jellicent Breloom Togekiss Megagross. I really love your team and that more people were using Toge Meta.